Instincts by Romeo Void

Instincts, the third and last Romeo Void album, came out on Columbia in 1984, the San Francisco band's final word before the split the following year. David Kahne produced, and he polishes their post-punk edges into sleek, pulsing new wave without losing the chill: Benjamin Bossi's saxophone wails and curls around the beat, Peter Woods's guitar chimes and Frank Zincavage's bass keeps up a cool, steady prowl.

At the center is Debora Iyall, a lyricist known for tackling sexuality and alienation from a woman's point of view, singing with a detached, smoky cool. "A Girl in Trouble (Is a Temporary Thing)" carried the album onto pop radio, a top 40 single that peaked at number 35 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.